Tag: Torture

Witnessing Against Torture: Why We Must Act

By Kathy Kelly

June 22, 2010

   

Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  U.S. Constitution Amendment I

An old cliché says that anyone who has herself for a lawyer has a fool for a client.  Nevertheless, going to trial in Washington, D.C., this past June 14, I and twenty-three other defendants prepared a pro se defense.  Acting as our own lawyers in court, we aimed to defend a population that finds little voice in our society at all, and to bring a sort of prosecution against their persecutors.

Months earlier, on January 21st, we had held a memorial vigil for three innocent Guantanamo prisoners, recently revealed to have been in all probability tortured to death by our government with what would turn out to be utter impunity – and because we had wished the culpable parties to take notice, we’d staged a vigil where they worked, specifically on the Capitol Steps and in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building. We had been charged with causing a “breach of the peace,” a technical legal term for a situation that might risk inciting people to violence. In abetting Administration use of torture, Congress had been inciting others to horrendous violence, and we’d been protesting perhaps one of the gravest imaginable breaches of the peace.  Now we were making our small attempt to take these crimes to court, in the course of defending ourselves against what we felt to be a misdirected charge.  

War Criminal Bush: Go backwards! “I’d do it again”, I did a heckuvajob!

    “Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” Bush told a Grand Rapids audience Wednesday, of the self-professed 9/11 mastermind. “I’d do it again to save lives.”

huffingtonpost.com

Bold text added by the diarist

President Obama says “We can’t go backwards”

Ex-President and Unindicted war criminal George W. Bush is basically saying “Why not go backwards, look at the wonderful legacy I have left you!”

Yeah, those were WAR CRIMES, the kind Reagan forbid and made illegal under US law, but, now that you have reminded us that the only thing in your legacy that you want to remind us of is how torture worked in your book, I say we encourage George W. to keep talking. Keep reminding us of that legacy, Georgie, cause you sure didaheckuvajob.

More below the fold

Those Damned Gitmo Defense Attorneys Must be Watched!

Photobucket

(credit)

From the New York Times “Bill Puts Scrutiny on Detainees’ Lawyers:”

WASHINGTON – A provision tucked into a defense bill before Congress would direct the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate any suspected misconduct by lawyers for Guantánamo Bay detainees, opening a new chapter in a recurrent political controversy over legal ethics and the representation of terrorism suspects.

(snip)

Lawyers for Guantánamo detainees have reacted with outrage to the proposal, saying it would have a chilling effect on their efforts to help detainees get habeas corpus hearings or to defend them in military commission trials. They are organizing to try to persuade Congress to strip the language before enacting the final bill, which must also still pass the Senate.

“No lawyers could possibly predict what conduct might fall within the law,” said David Remes, who represents several detainees. “It would therefore be impossible for Guantánamo lawyers to represent their clients effectively and zealously.”

We’ve already seen journalists banned from Guantanamo for reporting the name of an interrogator that had already been made public.

First the Pentagon came for the journalists.  Now lawmakers are targeting the defense lawyers.  Not just Republicans, though it was a Republican who introduced the legislation – Congressional Democrats in the House Armed Services Committee unanimously allowed this provision to be added to a defense bill “that the full House of Representatives is expected to begin debating this week.”

Anyone see a pattern here?

Accountability for those who ordered torture?  Nope.

Accountability for those who lied us into war?  Nope.

Accountability for Cheney’s top secret energy meetings that have resulted in the mess we now see in the Gulf, the mess that was once our Department of the Interior?  Nope.

Unfair power mongering towards those who defend the rights of human beings we tortured?  Yep.

Unfair power mongering towards those journalists who allow us to be an informed citizenry?  You betcha!

Dytopia 21: Laissi’s Scars





The Human  moral keyboard is limited Adam One used to say:  there’s nothing you can  play on it that hasn’t been played before.  And, my dear Friends, I am  sorry to say this, but it has its lower notes.–Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood







UK Torture Inquiry Gearing Up

While the Chilcott Iraq War Inquiry was mostly about what was going on in Britain at the time of the lead up and into the Iraq War and Occupation there were many points made, early on especially, as to what was happening in the White House as well as between the Counterparts in the Governments and the Military’s of both countries. Just below is a clip of what I had posted of testimony coming out of that Inquiry:

Wild Wild Left Radio #64 On Obama’s Watch? 1/3 Through his Presidency

Tonight at 6PM Eastern Time, WWL Radio!!!!!

Gottlieb and Diane G. will be live and in color (or is that off color?) on WWL radio tonight at 6pm Eastern Time to guide you through Current Events taken from a Wildly Left Prospective.

Hear the Unreported & Under Reported Headlines stories you should be paying attention to, from US Politics, to the farthest reaches of the Earth by the WWL coalition of subversion: undermining the PTB by speaking Truth to Power!!!!


Sometimes we have no control over the hand we are dealt; but we ALWAYS have control on how we play our hand.

2008 played a tidal wave of resentment for the abuses of the last administration: The horrors of Gitmo and torture, the demanding of ending our presence in Iraq, the absolute mandate for National Health Care and last and probably most importantly, accountability for economic crisis and relief from such.

Tonight we will be discussing the continuing escalation and prolonging of the theatres of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We address Seymour Hersch’s revelation about the battlefield executions done by our soldiers.

The oil spill, rather than creating stricter regulations, seems to have made it probable to pass an anti-energy bill that throws much of it to the “State’s Rights” set. The Wall Street thieves still are not being fully investigated, while Iceland actually is imprisoning their equivalents.

Obama seems intent on moving the SCOTUS rightward with his choice of Kagan.

Join us as we attempt to take the barrage if information in this news cycle; cut through the fog and explain what the true results will be….

…. and grade this first third of Obama’s Presidency.

Please join us!

Controversy? We face it. Cutting Edge? We step over it. Revolutions start with information, and The Wild Wild Left Radio brings you the best in information and op/eds from a position that others on the Left fear to tread.

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Join Gottlieb and Diane every Friday at 6pm EDT on Wild Wild Left Radio, via BlogtalkRadio, for News from the Real Left. No hand-wringing, no PC, just straight talk from reality based politics.

WWL Radio: Free Speech in Practice.

The call in number is 646-929-1264

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I’m doing a presentation on Omar Khadr, in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Hello Friends,

   Just a word for those is the Pacific Northwest, especially Vancouver.

   I will be doing a presentation entitled:

   “Omar Khadr, American Torture and Why You Should Care”

   Friday, May 21st

   7pm

   St. Mark’s Anglican Church, Kitsilano

       1805 Larch St.

       Vancouver

       (2nd and Larch)

   $5

   You are all invited and very welcome.

   (Sorry to be so cryptic, but it’s easier to make details clear.)

             Hugs,

             Heather

   

Starting a Difficult Conversation: We Need To Come Together – Torture and Accountability

Dear Friends,

      I am writing this because I am very frustrated and heart broken.

    As many of you know, the mission of my life is stopping torture as the law, policy and practice of the United States and fighting to have those responsible held legally accountable. I do this in the name and memory of my husband, Dan, who was a Vietnam vet who survived torture. Dan suffered from his injuries for over thirty years, until his fatal heart attack four and a half years ago.

    For several years there seemed to a growing consensus and growing energy in the progressive and Democratic community around this issue, and I was very hopeful that we could make the change happen, because those in power would see that they had no choice. Then the Health Care debate and legislation took over the national conversation and the blogoverse conversation too, and pretty much squashed the issue flat. While I absolutely believe that the conversation and legislation surrounding health care had to happen, I had hoped that following its conclusion we could put anti-torture and pro-accountability issues “back on the table”. It grieves my heart that this has not really happened.

    At the same time as the Health Care debate and legislation was going on, something else was going on too: gradually, those who are committed to this issue have been splintering into different online homes. This makes it much more difficult to get traction on the issue. Those in power need to see that there is a strong and united front who won’t back down from pointing out that torture is still the law, policy and practice of the United States, and demanding that it stop and be removed, and demanding that there be legal accountability for torture.

    I understand why the fracturing has happened, and that people on all sides have been hurt, but we MUST stand together, or those who suffer every single day in Guantanamo and at the other prisons will continue to suffer every single day. I know you know that. I know that you feel their suffering in your bones.

  Please, help me.

  I need your ideas.

  I need your energy.

  I need your commitment.

 Standing with you, for justice and accountability,

               For Dan,

               For all those without a voice,

                         Heather

Greenwald: Obama DoJ prosecutes Bush corruption whistleblower, but not Bush war crimes

    The Obama Justice Department (on April 15th 2010)* announced that it has secured a ten-felony-count indictment against Thomas Drake, an official with the National Security Agency during the Bush years.  

~snip~

    (T)he DOJ alleges “that between approximately February 2006 and November 2007, a newspaper reporter published a series of articles about the NSA,” and it claims “Drake served as a source for many of those articles, including articles that contained classified information.”

~snip~

    Although the indictment does not specify Drake’s leaks, it is highly likely (as Shane also suggests) that it is based on Drake’s bringing to the public’s attention major failures and cost over-runs with the NSA’s spying programs via leaks to The Baltimore Sun.

salon.com

Bold text and some editing* done by the diarist

   The indictment of Thomas Drake has NOTHING to do with the illegality of the Bush warrantless wiretapping program, rather, it has to do with Drake’s uncovering of major failures and cost over-runs within the domestic spying program. As Greenwald writes . . .

    I used to write post after post about how warped and dangerous it was that the Bush DOJ was protecting the people who criminally spied on Americans (Bush, Cheney Michael Hayden) while simultaneously threatening to prosecute the whistle-blowers who exposed misconduct.  But the Bush DOJ never actually followed through on those menacing threats; no NSA whistle-blowers were indicted during Bush’s term (though several were threatened ).  It took the election of Barack Obama for that to happen, as his handpicked Assistant Attorney General publicly boasted yesterday of the indictment against Drake.

salon.com



Bold text added by the diarist

    Wait, wait, wait! If Obama’s DoJ is prosecuting crimes from the Bush era isn’t that an act of “Looking backwards, not forward”? ( and yes, revealing state secrets, even if done for the good of the public as whistleblowers do, is still illegal. )

More below the fold

Stopping Torture: My Mission, I Need Your Help

As many of you know, my husband, Dan, was a Vietnam vet who survived torture. Dan suffered from his injuries for over thirty years, until his fatal heart attack four and a half years ago. When he got back to the US, Dan had to have all of the toenails on both of his feet removed, to try to get rid of the bamboo infection from where they had inflicted pain to try to get him to tell them what they wanted to know. There was never enough food in the house to fill the hole left by the food deprivation he had suffered. He never got a full night’s sleep. He was till waking up screaming the week before he died.

Dan left me with a mission, to stop torture as the law, policy and practice of the United States, and to fight to have those responsible held legally accountable.

     

An Opening to Indictments and Accountability?

Turning the innocent, not only those who were grabbed and held for years but their countrymen and women, into potential foreign criminal terrorist, not winning hearts and minds and not being the law abiding country we not only claim but attack others for doing same!

Indecent treatment at Gitmo?

4/3/10 The Day after Good Friday: Zubaydah

From the ACLU’s A Ponzi Scheme of Torture

Chapter 4, Part 3  3/20/2010

http://www.thetorturereport.or…

(this same link in a form which does not jump all over the page when the mouse attempts to scroll over it here:  http://www.thetorturereport.or…  )

Timeline Summary of Binyam Mohamed and Abu Zubaydah:

April 2002.  Binyam Mohamed arrested in Pakistan.  Interrogated by the British Secret Service MI6. Tortured in Moroccan secret prisons.

Sept 2004 Binyam Mohamed sent to Guantanamo, from Bagram, Afghanistan. Although declared an

“enemy combatant”  Nov 2004, Binyam Mohamed decides not to participate in the military Tribunal created by President Bush in Oct 2001.

2005  Binyam Mohamed charged with conspiring against the U.S., with “Usama Bin Laden (a/k/a Abu Abdullah), Saif al Adel, Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri (a/k/a “the Doctor”), Mohammad Atef (a/k/a Abu Hafs al Masri), Abd al Hadi al Iraq, Zayn al Abidin Muammad Husayn (a/k/a Abu Zubayda hereinafter “Abu Zubayda”), Jose Padilla, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad” to commit acts of terrorism.

Zubaydah, the vanishing man-



(Binyam)Mohamed was formally recharged with conspiracy on May 28, 2008. The charge sheet is virtually identical to the one issued on November 4, 2005, except that Richard Reid’s name has been removed from paragraph (e) and every reference to Abu Zubaydah has been purged from the document. Where before “Binyam Mohammad then traveled to Birmel, Afghanistan and was introduced to Abu Zubayda” and “Abu Zubayda promised him training in Pakistan building remote control devices for explosives,” for example, now “Binyam Mohamed then traveled to Birmel Afghanistan, and trained on building remote control devices.” “After arriving in Lahore, Binyam Mohammad and Jose Padilla met with Abu Zubayda in private and discussed plans for attacks against the United States” and “Abu Zubayda stated he preferred Binyam Mohamed conduct an ‘overseas’ operation instead of going back to Afghanistan” became “After arriving in Lahore, Binyam Mohamed and Jose Padilla plotted attacks against the United States. After these discussions, Mohamed and Padilla agreed to be sent to the United States to conduct these operations rather than returning to Afghanistan.”23 [23]

Sept 22, 2008. Lt Col Darrel Vandeveld, US military Tribunal prosecutor, requests to resign his military commission, stating he had ethical qualms about continuing to prosecute Guantanamo detainees without evidence being made available for the defense.

Oct 20, 2008.  Pentagon dropped all charges against Binyam Mohamed and four other detainees whose original charge sheets had linked them to Abu Zubaydah.

Oct 21, 2008. The United Kingdom notifies the Foreign Office they are about to hand down notice on releasing CIA documents for Binyam Mohamed’s attorneys.

Oct 22, 2008.   The British courts rule.  A British – US diplomatic tug of war over who goes first, releasing what classified documents, trying to hide the torture evidence, results. This year, a few paragraphs were released, showing that the British govt. secret services did know of Binyam Mohamed’s incarceration.

Jan 22, 2009.  President Obama orders Guantanamo closed, bans torture, forms task force to review all cases.

Feb 23, 2010.  Binyam Mohamed finally freed and returned to the UK.


from Binyam Mohamed’s Statement the day he was released:

….For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence. I had met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers.

I am not asking for vengeance; only that the truth should be made known, so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured.

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